


Kimmy's Summer Vacation!

by stillscape



Category: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3559406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look out, world! Kimmy Schmidt's first summer out of the bunker is going to be an adventurous one!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kimmy's Summer Vacation!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to diaphenia, whose beta services I own, and throwingpens, who is always down for brainstorming.

Xanthippe Voorhees is a lot of things. A _lot_ of things, okay? And fine, one of them is a virgin. And another is an avid birdwatcher. A third is maybe a little terrified that the birdwatching thing and the virgin thing are mutually reinforcing and she’ll be one of those freaks who goes off to college without ever having contracted an easily preventable STD she’ll have to deny. 

She’s also _not_ a lot of things. One of the things she is not is stupid, so although it’s not like she’s watching TV news on purpose (who even does that, other than her stepfather), when she sees a familiar bald, gay black man out of the corner of her eye on the screen as she’s stomping past the living space designation of the open-concept floor plan, she…doesn’t stop to look. Nor does she stop furiously texting Simone. 

_Pie, pirate ninja, poison bottle, ceiling fan_. Send. 

When she’s safely in her room with her door locked, she flips up the screen of her MacBook and starts googling. “Kimmy Smith” won’t yield anything, she knows that. She’s tried it. 

Biting her lip in concentration (and chastising herself for it, because how eighth grade is that, concentrating), she types a few phrases. Not “bald gay black man,” because she hasn’t even typed it and she already can’t deal with that much porn, but “real life Wendy’s Hamburger girl” and “grinning freak” and--dammit, why can’t she remember the bald black guy’s _name_? Titus Andronicus...no, that’s Shakespeare, one she hasn’t read yet. 

She’s almost willing to concede defeat, go back downstairs and speak words out loud to her stepfather that would indicate an interest in something he’s watching on television, when inspiration strikes. Kimmy isn’t very smart, Xan reasons, so if she’s operating under a pseudonym, then it’s probably almost exactly her own name. “Last name Smith,” she types, quickly scanning the Wikipedia page that pops up as the first result. _Smith (surname)_ , it says. Germanic variations, it says. Schmid. Schmidt. 

“Kimmy Schmid,” she types. 

_Did you mean “Kimmy Schmidt”?_ asks Google, helpfully pulling up some pictures.

“No way,” Xanthippe tells herself, but there she is, in all her stupid, weird glory. Her stupid stepmom hired an Indiana Mole Woman. It’s the most insane, interesting thing that’s ever happened to her. Definitely more interesting than the bald, gay black man shooting a music video in her house, or that sex robot she saw resurrecting itself from the flowerbed. “Way to go with the background check, Jacqueline.” 

She’s just about to text Simone when another thought strikes. 

Kimmy Schmidt was sort of her nanny. Kimmy Schmidt meted out discipline. Jacqueline let her, Xanthippe Voorhees, get grounded by a woman who lived in a bunker for fifteen years. 

She glares at her phone for a good thirty seconds, challenging it to accidentally-on-purpose call Kimmy Schmidt. 

The phone ignores her. Overwhelmed by frustration, she sweeps all the electronics to one side of her bed and buries herself in blankets. 

Simone hasn’t been answering her texts lately. Or her Snapchats. 

The next day, she reaches out to Kimmy, sort of. What the hell do you say to someone after you find out news like that? 

_Bunker?!_ she types, followed by _I knew u were weird._

It takes only a few moments for Kimmy to respond. She calls, actually calls, like that’s what phones are for. 

“Xan? How’s Connecticut treating you?” 

“Okay” slips out. Then, regaining command of herself, “It sucks.” 

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“You’re a Mole Woman.”

Kimmy pauses. “So you saw the trial on TV?” 

“No, I saw your weird friend freaking out in a hotel room on my stepdad’s TV. What drugs is he on?”

“He’s not. Wait, Titus, are you on drugs? No, don’t tell me. And no, Xan, you can’t have any. I know you don’t really want them.” 

“This isn’t about me. This is about you being underground for my entire life.” 

“What about it...is this about?” 

The house in Connecticut is a few thousand square feet, but it feels claustrophobic. Not in a good way. There are good kinds of claustrophobic, like being crammed next to a bunch of gross strangers on the M train, or piled in the back of a taxi while the driver yells _too many passengers_ in broken, accented English. And then there’s the bad kind of claustrophobic: the sensation that your bedroom walls are mandatory instead of optional, that maybe your mother is a living, breathing set of walls. 

That Xan might be her own worst set of walls does not consciously occur to her. 

“It’s not about anything,” she sighs. “It’s about you being a freak, okay?” 

“I know you are, but what am I?” Kimmy shoots back. Then she swallows so hard Xan can actually hear it through the phone. She can visualize it perfectly, too: lips pressed together, throat almost (but not quite) wobbling. It makes her want to punch something. But she doesn’t have anything to punch, so she makes fists instead, purposefully stabbing the heel of her hand with her own fingernails.

“You’re a freak.” 

“I know you are, but what am I?” 

It has the potential to go on forever. 

“Shut up.” 

To Xan’s surprise, this sort of works. 

“Look, I’m still in Indiana,” says Kimmy. “But I’ll be back in New York in a couple of days. Maybe we can meet up for coffee or something. Is that still a thing people do?”

“Are you seriously asking me whether people still drink coffee?” 

“Besides, you’re too young to drink coffee. And I don’t even _like_ coffee.” 

Xan hates coffee but drinks it anyway. Artisan organic hand-ground pour-over. Black. Notes of wild Amazonian berries, according to the barista. Notes of dirt and battery acid, according to her taste buds. But this is what is drunk. 

“Yeah, sure,” she says, rolling her eyes. She hopes Kimmy can feel her eyeballs rolling. “Let’s get coffee.” By this, she means that they should never, ever, ever get coffee. 

“It’s a date!” Kimmy shrieks. Squeals. Or maybe just says enthusiastically, who knows. 

“Great.” 

“Okay! Great.” 

They are never, ever, ever, ever, ever getting back together. Getting _coffee_ , Xan quickly thinks, correcting herself, and dammit, now she’s imagining Kimmy in a Taylor Swift video. Or a series of Taylor Swift Instagrams. Taylor Swift would adore Kimmy, probably. Kimmy would adore Taylor. Would it be too much work to set up a fake Instagram for Kimmy, maybe faux-invite Taylor to a “hooray I’m free from the bunker” party? Taylor would send cupcakes and brightly colored cardigans and red lipstick that would clash with Kimmy’s hair. Taylor would show up and hug her and then they could be BFF’s. 

“Great,” Xan repeats. She has no idea why she knows this much about Taylor Swift. “Coffee.” 

Six days later, Xan’s scraping the outline of a white-breasted nuthatch into her thigh with the sharpest part of her pinkie fingernail, watching the flesh go from pale to pink and back again as she waits. She’s at the only decent coffee shop within tolerable walking distance from the mall, which is where her mother is right now, buying out Talbot’s or something. There are two stevias, three Sugar in the Raws, and seven ice cubes dissolving in her iced pour-over. Sweat drips down the outside of the glass. Sweat drips down Xan’s back. She’s chosen an outside table, under the theory that Kimmy may spontaneously combust in direct sunlight. 

Her phone buzzes. 

_Almost there!_ , and then, _At least, I think we’re almost there_ , and then, just as Xan’s formulating a question about the “we,” Kimmy appears in the distance, silhouetted by Titus Andronicus. Which isn’t his name, she reminds herself. 

“What the _f_ \--” 

A loud _bleep_ , courtesy of the video game of the kid at the next table, drowns her out. Kimmy waves. And, not for the first time in recent memory, Xan feels an uncomfortable churning in her stomach. 

“Well,” explains Kimmy, who now has some sort of fizzy pink soda (and who is not spontaneously combusting), “Titus can drive. I never got to learn. Xan, do you know how to drive?"

"No, I don't know how to drive." Why would she? She hasn't turned sixteen quite yet, and even if she had, since when do New Yorkers learn how to drive?

"I wish I'd gotten to learn." 

"I learned the moment my feet could reach the pedals of my dad's Ford F-U50," chimes in Titus. "Cars! Are something I know a lot about. Why wouldn't I?" 

Xan says nothing. Kimmy says nothing. Titus surveys them both, regally. 

"You ladies," he says, gesturing, "should learn how to drive."


End file.
